I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a crazy person. I started Capoeira back in 2009 in a much different era of the art and in physical training in general. These were the days of strong group rivalries (think Sharks and Jets) and the general training advice “just do it” or the more detailed “just do it harder”. This is what some folks think of the good ol’ days of the art and was actually a time when Capoeira was much more popular in the US. We were still coming off the heels of Only the Strong and Eddy Gordo, and groups were significantly bigger than they are today. But that doesn’t mean the teaching and group leading strategies then were actually good or healthy. They excluded a whole lot of people right at the beginning, pushed many people out who loved the art, and only left space for people who were, well, a little bit crazy.
Pretty early on in my Capoeira career I started teaching to maintain a club at the college I was attending and so had to figure out not only how to learn pieces of Capoeira on my own, but also how to teach them to people who had never seen the art before. It was a real challenge and I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a lot about myself and the learning process in general. Though most things didn't come naturally to me, I wanted to learn so badly that I was willing to work through anything. I was driven in a way that I really hadn't felt before in my life.
As the years went on, I trained with several different Capoeira groups and was able to deeply study the art from people who were incredibly knowledgable and helped me build my foundations and broad love of the art and culture. The teachers I met and worked with were amazing, but I kept feeling something was missing for me. In the background, the physical training world was making great advancements in training techniques and methodologies, and I felt that the Capoeira community was falling behind that wave of progress. In addition, while I was lucky to learn from great leaders, I couldn’t help but feel out of place in the very strongly top-down structures most groups were built on.
After moving to California in 2016, I spent the first few years establishing myself and focusing on my training, but I knew that I not only wanted to get back to teaching, but I wanted to actually build something here that was different. In 2019, I got that chance. In collaboration with Loopkicks Tricking, a group I had been training and performing with prior, we built and then opened the gym we are in now. The goal of this space was to have a big training and teaching area that could serve a variety of movement and acrobatics art in a safe and efficient way. A big part of that was my Capoeira program.
I wanted this program to be founded on the idea of putting students first, and finding ways to best serve the needs of a wide variety of people of all ages, genders, and physical abilities. I wanted a school that was welcoming and inclusive, and that made students feel they had ownership in the art they were learning and the group they were joining. I wanted a school that constantly seeks to improve on its teaching methods by learning new and improved techniques from a wide range of arts and disciplines, both inside and outside Capoeira. And underpinning all of this, I wanted to be able to honor and show respect for the art that I love by preserving its history, culture, and traditions, and passing those on to my students and the broader community. I'm incredibly lucky to have the ability to do that here, and I'm committed to maintaining those values in all of the work we do.
This is only the short version of my history and our school, I hope you'll come join us to learn more! - Instructor Mike
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